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Massachusetts for Palin?
The Boston Globe ^ | August 1, 2010 | Jeff Jacoby

Posted on 07/31/2010 8:13:03 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet

IT IS Election Night, 2012. The polls have closed. State by state, the votes are being counted, and gradually it becomes clear, to the bottomless horror of some voters and the unbridled delight of others, that Sarah Palin, the Republican presidential nominee, has bested President Barack Obama in the popular vote nationwide.

In Massachusetts, where Obama crushed Palin in a 79 percent landslide — the most lopsidedly anti-Palin vote of any state — “bottomless horror’’ doesn’t begin to describe the political reaction. For in 2010, Massachusetts joined the National Popular Vote compact, making a commitment to cast all of its electoral votes for the presidential candidate receiving the most votes nationally, regardless of the results in Massachusetts. The compact took effect in December 2011, when California became the 15th state to join, thereby uniting enough states to control a majority of the Electoral College. Now Massachusetts, the bluest of the blue states, must award its presidential electors to a candidate Massachusetts voters overwhelmingly opposed.

. . .

Well, that’s one scenario. Maybe it won’t be Sarah Palin, maybe it won’t be 2012, but sooner or later a Republican is going to win the largest number of votes in a presidential election, and that Republican probably isn’t going to carry Massachusetts. What will Bay State liberals and Democrats say when the National Popular Vote compact that so many of them endorsed requires Massachusetts electors to line up behind the Republican? Imagine if Massachusetts had been compelled to give its electoral votes in 1972 not to George McGovern, but to Richard Nixon. Or to the first George Bush in 1988, instead of Michael Dukakis. Or to George W. Bush, not John Kerry, in 2004.(continued)

(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...


TOPICS: Front Page News; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2012; baker; bush; electoralcollege; massachusetts; novotesbypublic; obama; palin; patrick; popularvote; romney; sarahpalin
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To: tom h

“Rarely has it happened that the popular vote winner lost in the electoral college. In 50+ Presidential elections it has happened only twice to the best of my knowledge — 1876, Hayes v Tilden, and 2000, Bush v Gore.”

Well there is 1960, Kennedy v. Nixon also. Additionally, it is not clear there was a final national count in 2000 to know who won it.


41 posted on 08/01/2010 9:25:48 PM PDT by JLS (Democrats: People who won't even let you enjoy an unseasonably warm winter day.)
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To: JLS

JLS, now I’m a bit of an American history buff and I’m wondering if you really know the details of why JFK did not win a majority of popular votes. Because it’s true but only by a technicality. Do you know that story?

In case you don’t, here’s the facts:

Kennedy’s popular vote total was 0.17%, or 112,000 votes out of 68 million cast. Just about any source will use these figures.

But the truth is that some of Kennedy is routinely “awarded” votes in the state of Alabama that were not intended for him. At the time, voters in Alabama voted for electors, not presidential candidates, and Kennedy’s tally includes the highest vote total for an Alabama elector even though almost half of the electors refused to vote for him when the electoral college convened. So, a more accurate accounting would give Kennedy fewer votes and a majority of popular votes to Nixon.

It’s hard to find detail about this but the NYT has a good summary:

http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/16/opinion/the-slippery-statistics-of-the-popular-vote.html


42 posted on 08/02/2010 12:30:33 AM PDT by tom h
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